Something I Love

I love listening to 70s and 80s reggae on vinyl.

I got my record deck mended the other week by an old man in Forest Hill Road. Bill Coe. He took hold of the turntable with a glint in his eye, and a couple of weeks later called to tell me it was fixed.

It was such an ugly old thing. I only really went in to collect it because it wouldn’t have been fair to leave it there, cluttering up his shop.

“How much do I owe you?” I asked.

“Four pounds,” he replied.

Four pounds?!?

A couple of days later I connected it up, plugged it in and put on an LP that I must have last played about 25 years ago. I think it was Bob Marley’s Survival. It made that little hiss and crackle, and then it just sounded so good –  kind of honest and true, and I felt it pulling me back to a good place – pulling me back to me.

Becca Leathlean